What did Jefferson mean when he said slavery was Wolf by the ears?

Answer 1

If you are able to grab a wolf by its ears, you daren't let it go because it will turn and savage you. It means that once you lock yourself into a situation, physical, emotional or economic, you have great difficulty getting out of that situation for fear of what will happen to you. Think of people with a gambling problem: they could be reduced to stealing money in the hope that they'll have the big win which will solve all their problems, and are too scared to stop because then they'll have to face a different reality without the relative comfort of the quasi-reality they're in. People who depended on slaves for their income thought everything would fall apart if they had to pay people to work for them. In other words, they'd lose money. They couldn't see a way out, they had the wolf by the ears, and so they did everything possible to keep their slaves and to fight those who attempted to free the unpaid workers. This mental attitude continued long after slavery was abolished and still survives today in the minds of those who maintain other cultures are inferior and deserving of various kinds of abuse. You see the same thing in corporate life today when employers who might be making billions resist paying workers more, or giving them more privileges, because they're afraid they'll be losing money. If you are thinking of it as slavery, it means that a slave owner is the person holding the wolf by its ears. Whereas the slave is the wolf. The wolf (slave) is captured and no one is letting it free. This quote is the title of a very good book by Ann Rinaldi called Wolf By the Ears. I would recommend reading this book.